Just to add some more cents of knowledge, here you have a video of me and my wingmates killing a Thargoid. Some things to keep in mind:

-This video was recorded during the first week of alien presence. So, no multicannons or advanced modules. Also the Thargoids were far less lethal than nowadays.
-Despite the voices are in Spanish (and I will NOT make subtitles for them) I can summarize our talk to "Oh, man, that did hurt", "Not the shutdown again!", "Those damned thargons are kicking me butt", "Heart exerted!", "Shield up, use beams", "going to rearm" and "moving back for repairs".

Specially when fighing the tharg in close range you will see how we kept doing "boom and zoom" maneuvers around it; on of us would hold its fire for a few seconds, then boost to its back and another one would distract the alien. That way we could very effectively reduce the ammount of damage to any single ship.

Also, back then there were not flak cannons. Our tactic was to organized coordinated retreats if needed to get away from the swarm, and we did that always towards the system star. Nowadays this tactic is no longer valid, as the swarms became very fast and stay close to the mother ship.

With that said, hope you learn something from our past battles that will help you in your future ones

Is the hull / skill of Thargoids adjusted based on players combat rank and / or wing / no wing situation? Somehow engaging in a wing is as challenging as fighting alone. Probably just a "feeling" but maybe worth asking.

Is the hull / skill of Thargoids adjusted based on players combat rank and / or wing / no wing situation? Somehow engaging in a wing is as challenging as fighting alone. Probably just a "feeling" but maybe worth asking.

No, I don't think the hull or skill changes. However, there can be several things that can make wing fights harder. The first one is a good old instancing bug where direct hits to an exposed heart with the multicannons do zero damage. Always fun. The other changes seem to be that the Thargoid can re-deploy its shields later on in the fight as well as use the special attacks (Caustic missile, emp and deploy thargons) each time it brings shields back up. No idea if this is a bug report or intended but the response to my bug report was to post video of it happening. The final challenge when in wing combat is that the Thargoid hearts will be harder to hit if ship isn't flying at you like it does all the time in a solo fight.

I tried running two flak launchers with the option of both barrels athe same time very effective on the swarm

I really want to use the flak launchers, but I'm already running 2x AX missles, 2x AX MCs,and a class 4 PA with class 3 beam for taking out shields, so I have no more room for them on my Anaconda. It sucks that they don't come in class 1.

Is the hull / skill of Thargoids adjusted based on players combat rank and / or wing / no wing situation? Somehow engaging in a wing is as challenging as fighting alone. Probably just a "feeling" but maybe worth asking.

Hello and thanks for your cooperation yesterday! IMO the Thargoid is just the same but focus is the key - when you are alone it is easier to get a clear shot as Thargoid focuses on you alone. Which is obviously both a blessing and a curse. I managed to destroy three hearts in solo before I was left without missiles but yesterday I had a hard time doing anything...

Most of all it was this instancing issue. You get a clear line, Thargoid stops for a few seconds and you empty the clip on target. Doing nothing. Swearing, jumping out and in. Happened twice yesterday with most of the clip, which can deal huge damage to the heart if it is not simply discarded.

Did somebody try to fly the fighter and get really close to shoot out the hearts? In a wing situation with one ships kitting the swarm, one ship focusing on hull with missiles and one ship sitting outside engagement zone with low heat signature and launching human-controlled fighters? AI doesn't seem to target modules, but a human pilot should be able to combine the speed / maneuverability of the fighter to shoot the damn hearts out. Any track record?

I have a FDL setup with 2 AX cannons, 2 AX Missiles and the Flack Cannon. Now I know that a Multicrew gunner can't sub-target the hearts but if I have the ship set up so that the gunner has access to the AX missiles and EMP blocker and the pilot retains control of the AX cannons and Flack Cannon. Will that give the Mulitcrew a chance if they go after a Cyclopes?